Hone Your Eye for Color with This Quilt Pattern
It’s An Easy Project to Make!
One of the first things painters need to learn is how to mix color. While the hue is important (the color: red, yellow, blue …), its value (light to dark) is equally so. The temperature of a color is also important (warm, like red, vs cool, like blue).
Quilters who understand these color principles tend to make especially stunning quilts.
The “Strata” quilt, by designer Gail Kessler, depends on hue, value, and temperature for the design to pop as it does. Look closely and you’ll see triangles of light to dark values of a warm color, next to similar triangles of cool colors. The value and temperature contrasts are what make the overall design work.
While that all sounds very technical, that doesn’t mean this quilt is difficult to make. It’s a very simple quilt to sew together. The strips are cut in varying widths so the seams don’t match, making this a quick and easy project.
Choosing the fabrics will be easy too – just follow the picture. In the process, perhaps without even realizing it, you’ll be honing your eye for hue, value, and temperature. By the time you’re finished with this quilt, you’ll be an old pro at selecting fabrics. Your future quilts will thank you!
While it appears that solid fabrics are used in this project, we can easily imagine it having a scrappy look by using small-scale prints.
The finished quilt is 69″ x 86″.
